Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church

Posted on December 26, 2015 by PLT Staff

Recording of a lecture presented by Mary McClintock Fulkerson at the Spring Institute for Lived Theology 2011 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fulkerson examines whether practices, spaces, doctrines or speech constitute the theology of faith communities by way of discussing the issues that arose during her participant observation at Good Samaritan. She considers why theologians need ethnography; how ethnography opens to view the need for other frames; the importance and benefits of understanding these explorations as theological inquiry; the challenges generated by ethnographic research for many traditional modes of thinking about theological reflection; and some issues she has not yet resolved. The lecture begins at the 2:05 minute mark.

Excerpt: “By interpreting these practices as theological, these worldly differences and all their messy differences are granted status as places where divine presence could be discerned and as central to real theology. What’s more, the role of the theologian, his or her social location, begins to matter much more and in ways that didn’t in liberation theology.”

  • Audio Information
  • Date Recorded:May 26, 2011
  • Location Recorded:Charlottesville, VA
  • Audio File:Download File »
This audio is published by the Project on Lived Theology (PLT). For any questions related to its use, please contact PLT (https://www.livedtheology.org//contact/). Copy available for use subject to Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution required, Non-Commercial use, No Derivatives, 3.0, Unported).